James Harden is having one of the most efficient offensive seasons in NBA history

After being an MVP runner-up last season, James Harden is even better through 20 games in the 2017-18 season. He’s leading the league in scoring 31.7 points per game) and assists (9.8 per game) while shooting 40.7 percent from three-point range. Harden’s season isn’t just historic for him — it’s one of the most efficient seasons in modern NBA history.

Over at FiveThirtyEight, Neil Paine took a look at every season an NBA player has had since 1977 in which they’ve played at least 25 percent of the team’s minutes (9,884 seasons in total) and Harden’s combination of usage and offensive efficiency is an outlier. He’s putting up an offensive rating of 122 points per 100 possessions while leading the league in usage rate, using 36 percent of the Rockets’ possessions while he’s on the floor. Russell Westbrook’s 2015 and 2017 seasons are the only ones that come close to that combination — both of those years had slightly higher usage rate and slightly lower offensive efficiency.

This is as good a case as any for Harden to finally win his first career MVP award this year.

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